Bluray review: The Road to Hong Kong (1962)

Kino Lorber has released the last of the Road pictures with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby,  the only Road picture not released by Paramount Pictures.  Coming along much later than the others, Road to Hong Kong is still a lot of fun.

By the early 1960s, both Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were becoming old hat to an era that was about rock and roll and edgier comedy.  Their last Road picture together had been ten years earlier, and that film was five years after the previous one.  The Road films were perfect for the war years with their breezy rat-a-tat comedy routines, but by the 60s they were TV late show fodder.

Bing and Bob teamed up for another Road picture, maintaining their established screen characters and snappy one liners, but also attempting to confront the modern era with situations involving rockets, space and spies. And enough people were interested in their reteaming make the film at least a minor box office success. 

There were some conflicts in pre-rrpduction.  The leading lady from all of the previous Road pictures, Dorothy Lamour, was considered too old by Bing (she was 48, he was 60), so Joan Collins (then under 30) was hired as leading lady.  Hope refused to be in the movie unless Dorothy had a role, so she was hired for an extended cameo.  The results have a different feel than the vintage Road movies of the 1940s but it is fun to see Hope and Crosby in a 60s-style Road picture, and the scene with Peter Sellers is a hilarious highlight.

Kino Lorber’s bluray includes a fun and informative commentary track by experts Stan Taffel and Michael Schlesinger.  It can be ordered at this link: ROAD/HONGKONG